U.S. pro-gun group sues San Francisco for declaring it as “domestic terrorist organization”

The U.S. National Rifle Association (NRA) on Monday sued San Francisco for declaring the gun-rights advocate as a “domestic terrorist organization.”

The NRA brought the lawsuit against San Francisco and its elected officials in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by accusing the city of violating the rights of the group’s members protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution last week declaring the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” in the wake of mass shootings in the past months across the country that have killed tens of people.

The resolution was introduced by Supervisor Catherine Stefani following the shooting epidemic, particularly the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting in late July in Northern California, in which three innocent people were killed, including a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl.

According to the court file published by the NRA on social media on Monday, the pro-gun group called the San Francisco resolution “unconstitutional,” saying that its “terrorist designation” is a frivolous insult.

“San Francisco’s actions pose a non-frivolous threat,” said the NRA, which has nearly 5 million members across the country as of December 2018.

“In the face of recent, similar blacklisting schemes, financial institutions have expressed reluctance to provide bank accounts for disfavored political groups, and city contractors fear losing their livelihoods if they support or even work with the NRA,” it added.

The San Francisco resolution, unless vetoed by its Mayor London Breed, will take immediate effect, which will blacklist anyone linked to the NRA.

The NRA urged the court to step in to “instruct elected officials that freedom of speech means you cannot silence or punish those with whom you disagree.”

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and city council members of Los Angeles in Southern California, as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James have also taken similar actions against the NRA, which was held responsible for a role in recent mass shooting incidents in the United States.

A total of 403 people have died in mass shootings in the country by the end of August 2019, with 93 deaths in August alone, according to statistics of the Mass Shooting Tracker website, a crowd-sourced database of U.S. mass shootings.